tattoos Archives - Matt Hodel Tattoo

The traditions of tattooing have been deeply rooted in the echoes of time. If you meet anyone who has been tattooing for more than 15 years, they will tell you how things used to be. Truly, tattooing has changed and evolved from the sponge and bucket days. With many progressive features being most noticeable on…

Putting the extra into your hard work is what makes you rise to the top. Nothing will be given to you. What is amazing is how many people will come to help you once you have started to help yourself. I have found that staying in motion is the key to advancing my career. This…

People cancel their appointments. This is a simple fact of business. I do not take offense to a cancelation. Do you want to know why? I love my clients. I love hanging out with them and I put them before myself. If someone needs to cancel I do not penalize them or beat them down…

My SELFJournal has a few parts to it. There is an opening of the day that includes writing your Itinerary, a Gratitude lList, Targets and daily Goals. Upon closing the day, you write Lessons Learned, Wins and another Gratitude List. The journal has helped me to take a daily inventory of myself and my actions.…

What we do is not secret. Secrecy has been considered a value in the tattoo culture. It has been such a tradition to guard all of your information that we pretend we are sitting on a wealth of knowledge that only the entitled are privy to. If you know me, I constantly challenge the standards…

It’s Throw Back Thursday! I found a memory card from 2008. I guess I didn’t like taking straight photos in back then.

Sketch Book Pro https://www.sketchbook.com/ This is the starter kit drawing program for the intimidated and computer inept artist. I have shown this program to tattoo artists around the country. Artists that had never drawn digitally took to Sketchbook very quickly. Sketchbook is a stripped down drawing program. It is very intuitive for a traditional artist…

When Nathan was ask what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said “A professional baseball player”. His fourth grade teacher told him to pick something real. I think this pushed him harder. She was right that he wouldn’t become a Ballplayer. My brother ended up spending 9 years with the Arizona Cardinals,…

I will post a video of our epic off road road trip. We crossed creeks and washed out roads while April walked knee high ahead of the bike. We had to ride up rock roads made for dirt bikes and country roads made for farm equipment. We brought a stranded biker gas. Camped on the…

This is the closest I get to a portrait. Franky and Madison have been getting tattooed from me for almost a decade. Here is Franky’s new tattoo! It is a tribute to his love, Madison. www.matthodeltattoo.com

The first years of tattooing are tricky. Your focus should be on technical ability. Can you make the machines do what you want them to do? The first few years are just a challenge to figure out why what worked on Monday will not work on Wednesday. Consider the novice tattooist. There is an urgency…

Your crystal balls sucks.

by Mark DeNicola at collective-evolution.com In a world where people are regularly commended for things such as hard work, dedication and focus, the idea of not taking life seriously can sound preposterous. But is a serious mentality really at the core of the previously mentioned good habits? Or is it what’s potentially getting in the…

For all its ups and downs, tattooing has been the only constant in my life. I started tattooing before I could legally drink. I had to borrow Mark Andrew state ID to get into the events of the Houston Convention in 1996. They were not only my formative years of tattooing, they were my formative…

I want to revisit a Blog post from a few years ago. I think Google is a great place to start. It’s very useful in getting your brain emerged into a visual library. We know that any image you can think of is up on the internet but how you use google is important. Google…

Just make the time. We’ve been talking a lot lately about getting on track, optimizing time, being productive, and other goal-achieving tips. I thought it would be good to be a little more specific about some of these ideas. It’s pretty easy to just think, “I need to [insert thing that never gets done],” but…

They say having kids will change you. This is Emma and I. In these photos I have been a father for 6 months. I was broke and we lived in a hotel in Albuquerque New Mexico. Our neighbors were Junkies and Whores. Something had to change. I really thought that one day I would wake…

It’s Monday, and there’s usually a mixed sense of optimism and exhaustion with what lies ahead for the week. A fresh start, and a new mountain of work. Here’s a few simple reminders about how to keep stress at bay and use it to your advantage. Found over at Psych Central, this quick article will…

I miss my friend Max. He lives in Austria. He is awesome. Check him out: Tattoos to the Maxx

Despite the best intentions… …the best efforts, the most thorough plans, life just does what it wants. We don’t ALWAYS accomplish what we set out to do. We fail. We are reminded that what we want isn’t necessarily going to become ours in the way we had imagined, or even at all. Times like these…

“People over estimate their uniqueness so that commonalities seem like small miracles.” Google has already found your tattoo. It has already found the same tattoo for hundreds of other people wanting a bird and stars. After a quick Google search you quickly realize how many people had your idea. It is no big deal. Don’t…

Ever feel like you can’t fucking think? Matt Hodel

Being on constant display – as most of us are now due to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and any other social media people steadily consume – can undoubtedly lead to speculation about the perception everyone else has about you. Personal, face-to-face encounters can obviously lead to this sort of paranoia as well, but the distance between…

…And our little life is rounded with a sleep Even though you’ve got a long to-do list looming over your subconscious like a vulture over nearly dead stuff, you need some rest, friends! Sure, no one’s going to finish that report (or Netflix marathon) for you, but enough is enough. Do everyone around you a…

The Lineage. I bought a pure breed dog once. The first thing I wanted to know was the condition of the puppie’s parents. Where did this dog come from? How old were the parents? What was the temperament of the parents? These answers would help paint a picture of traits I might expect from the…